David Greig’s Europe: Staging Globalization, Mobility and Refugehood
Abstract
The acclaimed Scottish playwright David Greig depicts contemporary mobility of various kinds. Focusing principally on mobility and travel in David Greig’s Europe, this paper aims at exploring the notion of “geopathology” in Una Chaudhuri’s sense, and thus brings a new perspective in the interpretation of the play. Chaudhuri has appropriated the term “geopathology” and “geopathic disorders” to describe the suffering caused by one’s location. Greig is fascinated with the contemporary world which is determined by actual dislocations of immigration and refugehood. His 1994 play Europe alludes to the Balkan unrest in the 1990s, and this paper attempts to explore such isues as geopathology, mobility, travel, and identity as the connecting substance of Greig’s Europe. The paper describes the Europe myth both as utopia and dystopia with the following themes: Europe as a symbol of geopathology, Europe as the embodiment of a utopic future, and Europe as the language of homelessness, rootlessness and hence mobility. It will be argued that the play incorporates “geopathology” as a dramatic and structural device and calls for an urgency for the contemporary refugee problem.
Keywords
References
- Bauman, Z. (2012). To nie jest dziennik. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.
- Billingham, P. (2007). Inhabitants of the tide mark – towards a new political poetics in the plays of David Greig. In P. Billingham (Ed), At the sharp end: Uncovering the work of five contemporary dramatists: David Edgar, Tim Etchells, David Greig, Tanika Gupta, Mark Ravenhill, 94-123: London: Methuen.
- Blanford, S. (2007). Film, drama and the break-up of Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Brennan, T. (1990). The national longing for form. In H. Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and narration, 44-52: London: Routledge.
- Brown, I. (2011). Edinburgh companion to Scottish drama. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Chaudhuri, U. (1997). Staging place: The geography of modern drama. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
- Czajka, A. (2016). Europe’s other: Europe, europeanisation and the refugee. 10 January 2019, http://www.academia.edu/26086813/Europes_Other_Europe_Europeanisation_and_the_Refugee.
- Derrida, J. (1992). The other heading: Reflections on today’s Europe. Indiana: Indiana UP.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Dilek İnan
*
0000-0002-5128-8409
Türkiye
Publication Date
October 18, 2019
Submission Date
February 27, 2019
Acceptance Date
September 20, 2019
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Volume: 18 Number: 4